Possible loss of limb’: Rogue ATO investigator fitted taxpayer with ankle monitor

ATO investigator under scrutiny after putting ankle monitor on taxpayer with no criminal history

Possible loss of limb’: Rogue ATO investigator fitted taxpayer with ankle monitor 

By Dan Nolan   

December 2, 2025 

A rogue investigator at the Australian Tax Office is under increasing scrutiny over a decision to place an ankle monitor on a taxpayer with no criminal history.

Anthony Rains remains employed by the ATO despite a Queensland Supreme Court judgment in October finding he had committed 11 acts of misconduct in a separate case against another taxpayer with no criminal history, known by the pseudonym Julie Clarke.

The  judgment is under appeal.

The latest case involves a 58-year-old businesswoman from Queensland, known as Taxpayer A, who is before the courts facing 93 charges of misleading a taxation officer.

Taxpayer A has pleaded not guilty and has raised concerns with the ATO’s executive leadership about how evidence was gathered in her case.

In the Clarke case, Rains was found to have fabricated evidence, as well as lying and removing exculpatory evidence that would have resulted in criminal charges being dropped.

Taxpayer A was also subjected to a control measure usually reserved for convicted sex offenders as part of her bail conditions. Aged 54 at the time, and suffering from several medical conditions, including diabetes, she was deemed a flight risk and was granted bail on the condition of wearing an ankle monitor.

After nine months, Taxpayer A provided a letter from her GP about “a medical problem being aggravated by the tracker on her ankle” and “with diabetes there is a possible loss of limb”.

The bail condition was removed. Helen Petaia, who won an apology and confidential settlement from the ATO in her own battle seven years ago, has been supporting Taxpayer A through her case. “The way that she has been treated, there’s only one word to describe it – cruelty,” Petaia said.

“To put an ankle bracelet on a middle-aged woman who all she’s trying to do is defend herself is the biggest breach of human rights that could possibly happen on this planet,” she said.

“Heavy-handed would be a really polite way to describe the ATO officers involved, but I would actually suggest that they’re basically delusional. I mean, who does that to a person? She wasn’t a flight risk.” 

A spokesperson for the ATO declined to answer a series of questions, including whether ankle monitors are still being used on Australian taxpayers with no previous criminal history.

“It would be inappropriate for the ATO to comment on this specific matter as it is before the court,” the spokesperson said. “Decisions relating to the imposition of bail conditions including the nature and extent of monitoring, are determined by the courts, not the ATO.”

The ATO is unwilling to explain to the public what action has been taken following the Supreme Court’s findings against Rains, citing an appeal.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions also declined to answer whether it was conducting a review of Rains’ other investigations, in particular those before the courts.
“Julie Clarke” is the 57-year-old businesswoman targeted by the ATO over seven years.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said her office was unable to question whether such a review should be happening.

“The CDPP is an independent agency. It is solely responsible for decisions as to which matters it chooses to prosecute,” her spokesperson said.
Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino, who is the minister responsible for the ATO, provided a statement to A Current Affair six weeks ago, saying that “he was aware of the judgment” and had “discussed the matter with the ATO commissioner”.

But last week, he then told a press conference in Canberra that he’d “get briefed in due course on that case”, explaining he was satisfied with the “very rigorous processes inside the ATO”. Shadow attorney-general Andrew Wallace described that as “entirely inappropriate” and said Mulino should intervene in a case he believed “stinks to high heaven”.
“It certainly raises very grave concerns about the manner in which, not just the way the investigator conducted himself in this case, but more broadly, the ATO,” Wallace said.

Wallace believes high-level discussions need to be held as to whether continuing with an appeal in the Julie Clarke case is appropriate.
“I think questions need to be asked as to whether the interests of justice really demand that the appeal be continued,” he said.